LITERACY AND ORAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT FOR ESL STUDENTS

Oral language developement and success in literacy help SLA students develop fluency and proficiency in the L2 language. Literacy begins before students enter the classroom.

Teachers must promote poficiency in language developement and literacy in SLA students by assessing the following factors:external image LITERACY_20LOGO.png
  1. Word Level Skills (examples include: rhyming, phonological awareness, syllables, matching)
  2. Text-Level Skills (examples include: listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and writing)

While assessing these skills, teachers must be able to determine identifying factors between student language learning differences vs. language difficulties.

Learning disabilities in SLA students:
The Linguistic Coding Deficit Hypothesis-- Students who have a phonological deficiency in L1 typically have difficulties with phonological awareness in L2.

Literacy Development:
According to N.L. Lesaux and the National Literacy Panel, in order for proficiency in L2 language learners to occur, teachers must be aware of how students develop the following skills in regards to literacy and oral language development:
  • Oral language skills, familiarity w/ print, text structure
    Understand how speech is transcribed in writing and know the rules for combining sounds
  • Construct written language into meaning
  • Know how to communicate through reading and writing and develop new vocabulary

Informational Web Resources for Teachers:external image 18_information_inv.gif
Center for Applied Linguistics/Literacy Education

website: http://www.cal.org/topics/le/

Oral Language Development: Teaching Diverse Learners
website: http://www.alliance.brown.edu/tdl/elemlit/orallanguage.shtml

Teaching Tools:
Help students develop literacy. Visit scholastic.comfor a variety of helpful lesson plans to external image tools4sc.jpgpromote literacy oral language development in the classroom.

Featured lessons:
WRITE IT! http://teacher.scholastic.com/writeit/
(Note: This lesson is geared to older and intermediate to advanced SLA students)

Milly and Macy's Day Parade: http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collection.jsp?id=137
(Note: This is for primary and beginner/intermediate SLA students)

Informational Article:
Using What We Know about Language and Literacy Development for ESL Students in the Mainstream Classroom by Susan Watts-Taffe and Diane M. Truscott
http://faculty.washington.edu/smithant/Watts-Taffe%20and%20Truscott.pdf

Suggested Reading:
Title:
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Mark Hammondexternal image curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time.jpg
Age: Middle school
English level: Intermediate
Summary: Late one night, Christopher comes across his neighbor's poodle, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork. Wellington's owner finds him cradling her dead dog in his arms, and has him arrested. After spending a night in jail, Christopher resolves--against the objection of his father and neighbors--to discover just who has murdered Wellington. He is encouraged by Siobhan, a social worker at his school, to write a book about his investigations, and the result--quirkily illustrated, with each chapter given its own prime number--is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. (Taken from www.amazon.com)


LiteracyNewsletter_Berzinskas



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Daiva Berzinskas
daivaberz@gmail.com